[ad_1]
How did Red Bull beat the 2023 floor rules and get so much speed on last year’s car? Mark Hughes has a look with Giorgio Piola’s technical illustrations.
Red Bull’s on-field advantage at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix looks even bigger than it will be at the end of 2022.
Although the respective design concepts of the three main groups have not changed fundamentally in the past year, each has gained more performance – although the new regulation increases the height of the floor in front of the rear wheels – as can be seen from the table below.
Read more: 6 winners and 5 losers from Bahrain – who started their season in Sakhir?
Bahrain 2022 vs Bahrain 2023 best qualifying times
| Red bull | Ferrari | Mercedes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1 m 30.681 s | 1 m 30.558 s | 1 m 31.048 s |
| 2023 | 1 m 29.708 s | 1 meter 30,000 cm | 1 m 30.340 s |
| to find | 0.973 s | 0.558s | 0.708s |
From the table above, it is immediately apparent that Red Bull has the largest profit margin. Key to Red Bull’s performance last year was aerodynamic efficiency, where they produced good downforce throughout the speed range, pulling in less than a Ferrari or Mercedes.
The takeaway from this was that Red Bull’s surface was more efficient than its rivals, meaning the car required less drag-threatening wing area for the same downforce.
In the year Red Bull’s challenge in 2023 is to maintain its floor advantage by incorporating rule changes.
Read more: From curfews to grid penalties – 10 rule changes you need to know about the 2023 F1 season
Raising the height of the outer edge of the floor in front of the rear wheel by 10mm and the diffuser by 15mm has been done to reduce the feeling of porpoising. The closer the floor edge and lower floor tunnel distribution throat is to the floor, the faster the overall floor air flow is drawn.
Adjusting the air pressure in this way creates more low power. Increasing the minimum allowable height will have the effect of reducing that drag. So in an attempt to make up for the losses caused by the rule change, Red Bull looked for a different way to speed up the airflow under the floor.
It’s allowed to use a single wing profile on each floor edge, and last year Red Bull cleverly translated it to place the wing under the floor ahead of the rear wheel. Nicknamed the ‘razor wing’ due to its shape, sitting there means Red Bull can’t use a wing profile at the top of the trailing edge.
The increased ground clearance made the wing less efficient than before and a new way of promoting airflow was found by moving the smaller wing to the upper surface – after cutting one of the vortex stirrers. – Authorized by the regulations.
Read more: Horner praises Red Bull for ‘fantastic’ start to 2023 but expects rivals to ‘come back hard’ in future races
The mini-wing itself produces very little downforce, but the most important function is that the low pressure on the bottom of the wing increases the force of the nearby vortex, creating an air flow in front of the surface. Rinse vigorously by increasing the speed.
To make that mini wing work as hard as possible, the sides of the rear deck are cut away, so that the airflow under the wing has more room to expand. Although this causes the floor to lose a little force, the cut part allows the wing to work harder, which increases the vortex force, which accelerates the air flow in front of the floor.
Although Red Bull’s improved performance comes from many areas, the surface’s adaptation to regulatory changes will be an integral part of the overall package.
As Red Bull explained in Bahrain on the official car changes: “The rule change forced a geometry change from last year to raise the lower end of the outer rim. It is not a change that the team chose to pursue, nor is it beneficial to the performance of the car, so the resulting geometry is to minimize the losses.
The rules are more than bad for what they have taken away, ingenuity.
F1 NATION: Red Bull clean sweep and Alonso’s impressive Aston debut – our Bahrain GP review
[ad_2]
Source link
